Syria says oil pipeline was blown up by rebel saboteurs

Black smoke is seen rising from Homs refinery in Syria on Dec. 8, 2011 in this handout photograph released by Syria's national news agency. A pipeline carrying oil from the east of the country to a refinery in Homs was blown up on Thursday.

A Syrian pipeline carrying oil from the east of the country to a vital refinery in Homs was blown up Thursday in what the official news agency SANA said was an act of sabotage by an armed terrorist group.

Opposition activists said flames and clouds of thick black smoke were seen at the site of the explosion in a suburb of the city, the epicenter of popular unrest against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that began in March.

"This is the main pipeline that feeds the Homs refinery," said Rami Abdulrahman of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The activist network also reported seven people killed in Homs Thursday by snipers and in "random" shootings.

SANA said the pipeline was attacked in the Tal Asour area to the northwest of the refinery on the outskirts of Homs, a city of 800,000 where -- activists say -- about 1,500 people have been killed in the crackdown. Read the full story.

Anonymous via Reuters

Black smoke is seen rising from a pipeline in Homs on Dec. 8, 2011. The pipeline was blown up on Thursday, an activist group said.